Dissipation Lifetime of Catalysis as a Dynamical System

Catalysis is a critical mechanism to direct chemical reactions in biology and chemistry. However, quantitatively predicting their properties such as activity or stability is difficult, due to the lack of an equation which can be applied to various reaction mechanisms. Here, we report an equation which estimates the lifetime of a catalyst by analyzing their mechanism from a dynamical systems perspective. Furthermore, as proof of concept, we show its consistency with experiments by performing the oxygen evolution reaction on manganese oxide. The equation successfully rationalizes the time until the activity decreases to 10 % of the initial value with an expected error of 20 %, providing the first quantitative model to predict the lifetime of a chemical system.